It's not easy getting people to admit something is a problem, then getting agreement on a solution, then finding the political will and money to get anything implemented. Architectural scholars offer intricate and complex design analysis for even larger and more complex social problems. Design scholars have their own rhythmic and intense way of writing as they search to provide meaningful analysis about buildings, materials, design, planning, and social impact. All this can be a little...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Ron Hinklin is the most famous voice you've never heard of. A successful singer since his junior high school days, Ron led the group responsible for some of the most iconic sounds of the 1970s, including vocals on the Partridge Family hit \"I Think I Love You,\" for which Ron and his group nabbed a Grammy nomination. He also sang some of TV's most memorable theme songs like MASH, That Girl, Batman, Happy days, Laverne and Shirley, and the famous Mickey D jingle You Deserve a Break...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
#257/Michelangelo Sabatino + Helen Staley + Musical Guest Don Most Michelangelo Sabatino is a professor in the IIT College of Architecture. He has trained as an architect, preservationist, and architecture-art-design historian and has served on a number of not-for-profit organization boards ranging from the Society of Architectural Historians to Docomomo International. His books include Making Houston Modern: The Life and Architecture of Howard Barnstone and his latest, co-authored with Susan...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
The development of four-lane highways and interstates in the 1950's and 1960's created a huge surge in car travel. In a time before the minivan, families would pile in the station wagon or the Airstream and hit the road to discover America. Roadside motels sprung up everywhere and car culture exploded. Sports cars like the wildly famous Mustang defined cool, and what better than to drive around LA or Palm Springs, or anywhere, really, than in a cool car. Today we explore cars and trailers and...
Topics: Podcast, Design, Wright, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra,...
Design critic Inga Saffron is the Philadelphia Inquirer's most feared columnist. Raised in Levittown NY she always wanted to be a newspaper reporter - and her first beat was the Girl Scout newspaper. She attended New York University, studied in France, and settled in Dublin, Ireland writing Irish publications and Newsweek. Joining the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1984, from 1994-1998, she was their Moscow correspondent and covered the Yugoslav Wars and First Chechen War. Since 1999, she has written...
Topics: Podcast, Design, Wright, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra,...
Every strong passion has ... a gift shop ... with art capturing the enthusiast's lifestyle. If you're into Star Wars or golf or architecture, the world's artists have plenty of wonderful paintings and prints to illuminate your walls. Today we talk from Modernism Week 2022 with two artists, Josh Agle (aka Shag) and Carrie Graber, whose works hang in hundreds if not thousands of Modernist houses and many more non-Modernist houses of architecture fans. Later on back in the studio, music with jazz...
Topics: Podcast, Wright, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra,...
One of the most well-known New York design educators, Daniella Ohad of Daniella on Design was former sergeant in the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate. She graduated from Tel Aviv University and moved to New York for a Masters from FIT and a PhD from Bard. Now she's an influencer, historian, writer, talk show host, curator, and keynote speaker. She's committed to design education and has taught at the School of Visual Arts, Pratt, Parsons, Cooper Union, and the New York School of...
Topics: Podcast, Wright, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra,...
In our 5th show from Modernism Week 2022, George and Tom talk with owners of significant Modernist houses, plus one very lucky houseguest: Ronnie Sassoon who's owned houses by Hal Levitt, Richard Neutra, and Breuer; Alfonso Cordon and Cord Struckmann of Beverly Thorne's Case Study House 26; and coming into town from LA just for this interview, the man, the myth, the legend, the Kato Kaelin of his generation, Josh Gorrell. Later on, in the last of our series from his new novel, Death by Design...
Topics: Podcast, Wright, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra,...
Here's the story...of a lovely lady....who hired a world-famous architect to design a small but spectacular house in Plano, Illinois, along the Fox River. Things didn't work out so well, and unfortunately Dr. Edith Farnsworth's story has been told largely from the perspective of that world-famous architect. Joining us today to share Edith's story, and what happened to the house, are professors Nora Wendl and Alice Friedman.
Topics: Podcast, Art, architect, architecture, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
What could be more fun than Modernist dogs, tiki culture, and mid-century modern motels? George and Tom talk with the author of Palm Springs Modern Dogs at Home, Nancy Baron, motels with Heather David, author of Motel California, and dive into Tiki culture with Sven Kirsten, author of the Book of Tiki. Later on, reading from his latest novel, Death by Design at Alcatraz, Anthony Poon.
Topics: Podcast, Art, architect, architecture, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Auric Goldfinger was one of most memorable evil villains in the James Bond 007 series. Played by Gert Frobe in the 1964 movie named for him, Goldfinger, this criminal mastermind created a scheme to corner the gold market by exploding a radioactive bomb over Fort Knox, the US gold supply housed in Kentucky. That was back when the nation's debt was a mere $311 billion and was backed by this gold, kinda like putting up your house as collateral for a loan. Goldfinger's plan to make the gold...
Topics: Podcast, Art, architect, architecture, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
In our 3rd show from Modernism Week 2022, we chat with award-winning architects Angie Brooks and Larry Scarpa; learn from Bruce Becker about the newly renovated Hotel Marcel in New Haven CT, formerly the Pirelli building designed by Marcel Breuer, and formerly a billboard for IKEA! Later on, reading from his latest novel, Death by Design at Alcatraz, Anthony Poon.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Some architects in the early days of Modernism designed their own furniture, among them Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolph Schindler, and Richard Neutra. Today, with a few exceptions, Modernist architects stay out of the furniture biz and rely on talented people like today's guest, legendary furniture designer Dakota Jackson. Later on, a little slow dancing with musical guest Krisanthi Pappas.
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
In our 2nd show from Modernism Week 2022, we explore Modernism in Monterey CA with returning guest Pierluigi Serraino, Modernism in Bakersfield CA with Neutra owner David Coffey, and listen to a reading from his latest novel, Death by Design at Alcatraz, from Anthony Poon.
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Few architects have been as exciting or controversial as Paul Rudolph, whose early successes designing Modernist vacation homes in Sarasota FL led to a later career as Chair of the Architecture Department at Yale, then nearly 30 years designing buildings with intense use of concrete and steel. While the public was largely inspired by his work, Rudolph fell out of favor in the US and shifted to Singapore and Hong Kong, where he was much heralded and sought after. Like most Modernist...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Every year USModernist Radio goes to Palm Springs for Modernism Week, the Super Bowl of mid-century modernism. This is no weekend tabletop show at the Elks lodge. It takes a huge village, a rather attractive Modernist village with perfect weather, to create an event that sells over 120,000 tickets across 11 days in February. Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better. This was the sixth year USModernist has been at Modernism Week, talking poolside at the USModernist Compound, aka the hip...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Welcome to USModernist Radio, where we talk and laugh with people who enjoy, own, create, dream about, preserve, love, and hate Modernist architecture, the most exciting and controversial buildings in the world. One man who's photographed many of them is Norman McGrath, whose images over the course of 6 decades have appeared everywhere from Progressive Architecture to Architecture Record. Later, jazz with the lovely Sherry Petta.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Stewart Hicks makes architecture understandable and accessible through his wildly popular YouTube channel. An assistant professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-founder of Design With Company, he covers everything from architecture superfans Brad and Kanye to why architects like flat roofs!
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
One of the most admired mid-century architects is John Lautner, a student and employee of Frank Lloyd Wright. Before he died in 1994, Lautner created some of the most wildly innovative and inspiring houses in the world, creating spaces and shapes that were light years in the future ahead of conventional architecture. No one except perhaps Zaha Hadid has even come close to his amazing and creative designs. With us is his daughter, and head of the John Lautner Foundation, Judith Lautner.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
In Montreal, Canada, there's an unusual modernist structure - on an island. Designed by Buckminster Fuller as the US pavilion for the 1967 World's Fair, or what everyone else on the planet calls the World Expo, the Biosphere attracted more than 5 million visitors, and today the site is a museum dedicated to the environment. In case you are a dome geek, and we know there are some out there, the Biosphere is a Class 1 icosahedral dome, as opposed to a Class 2 dodecahedral or a Class 3...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Elevators are essential to any large Modernist building and these days even in massive Modernist houses being built in LA. Joining us to discuss the ups and down of elevators is the Sultan of Schindler, the Oracle of Otis, the Titan of Thyssenkrupp - UNC Charlotte Professor Lee Gray, an expert on vertical transportation and the only fulltime elevator historian in the world!
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Before there were interstates, which was a long long time ago, there were smaller federal highways, often two-lane, that connected the east and west coasts. Route 66 was the most famous. Along the way, you'd find roadside motels, restaurants, and bars lit up with large neon signs highly stylized buildings. Anyone remember when all the Arby's had that 30-foot cowboy hat sign in front of each store? That's the idea. Los Angeles was a hotbed of these buildings as post-WWII optimism generated...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
There have been movies about movies, like Get Shorty, plays about plays, like Midsummer Night's Dream, and now a book about architecture books. Narrowing down the top 100 in architecture is the author of Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books, John Hill. Later, jazz with Marilyn Scott.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Joining us today are John O'Neill and DC Hillier, hosts of the new mid-century modern podcast, The Perspecta. Later, stick around for musical guest Eden Atwood, who will leave you ... (sigh) ... breathless.
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Many Modernist buildings are located in New York City, but not all of them are open to the public except for one special weekend in the fall. Joining the show on this Valentine's day are Pamela Puchalski and Dee Dunn of Open House New York, the organization that gets hundreds of buildings in the Big Apple to open up. In just a few days, Tom heads out to Palm Springs for Modernism Week 2022. George is already out there interviewing special guests we'll have for you over the spring, summer, and...
Topics: Podcast, Art, architect, architecture, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Today we are excited to introduce four really interesting design professionals who got on our radar over the last few months, including architectural historian Catherine Zipf on Frank Lloyd Wright, architect and author Bryan Toepfer on dealing with builders, preservation professional Tim Cannan on his new funding site, and the architect of one of the coolest concept houses in the world, the Darth Vader House in Houston TX, Lynn Spears.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
The promise and pursuit of successful prefab houses has been going on nearly 100 years. Frank Lloyd Wright tried and it didn't go so well. Sears, the retail store that's hurting these days, had a pretty good run in the early 20th century. For a while, people loved ordering houses right out of the Sears catalog. Later on after WWII, the cult favorite Lustron, well, not so much. There have been more than a dozen firms trying to create a modular home line that people will buy in large-enough...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
It's not easy being an architect. Make a living running an architecture practice can be tough. Just getting through design school is grueling, and then there's years of internship and employment detailing utility closets - while sitting in a thoughtfully beautiful but completely open office - where everyone can hear and see everything you're saying and doing. Once out on your own, clients who want imaginative design solutions are hard to find, especially in smaller cities. The money is not...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Remember when libraries were dark stately places with only books and magazines? Where if you talked at more than a whisper some stern librarian shushed you? No one likes to be shushed! And forget about eating or drinking. While those stately libraries still exist, new libraries have computers, 3d printing, video production, and even lattes. New construction is almost always modern, with naturally lit rooms replacing those dark bookstacks. Libraries have become community centers, voting centers,...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
This is the fifth year USModernist Radio has covered the New York Architecture and Design Film Festival, if by festival you mean mostly online and by New York you mean all over the world. Every year, producers, experts, stars, and creators gather to premiere their latest architecture and design documentaries, and this past year with COVID subsiding, but still concerning, Executive Director Kyle Bergman had a hybrid schedule of virtual and in-person screenings. Today, George talks with people...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Architect Louis Kahn has been gone almost 50 years, but his legacy and influence only grows as architects the public alike cherish his enduring importance. His major works include the National Parliament in Dhaka, Bangladesh; the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth Texas; and the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Kahn was also a revered educator, teaching at Yale and The University of Pennsylvania. Joining us today Michael Merrill,...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Oh, how times have changed for the newspaper world. From 2008-2020, about two-thirds of newsroom jobs went away. Then the pandemic hit and more than 90 local papers shut down or were slashed in headcount. Even big papers like the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the New York Times are smaller and more focused, with digital and video media adding to but more often replacing coverage of cultural topics like architecture and design. While the big papers still cover stories like...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Happy Holidays with George, Tom, Raleigh architect Erin Sterling Lewis, and author Elizabeth A. T. Smith, whose famous book on the Case Study Houses is an architecture heavyweight champion. The New York Times said \"You need a California workout to lift it, but the book, an exhaustive homage to the houses, is worth the effort.\" Architecture critic J. P. Cohen said, \"This book is a true gem, and considering its size it's the Hope diamond.\" Later on, the John Lautner...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Columbus, Indiana is a city of just over 47,000, yet the national AIA ranks it 6th in the nation for architectural innovation and design - behind Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Like Marfa, Texas is for artists, Columbus is a modernist architecture fan's heaven with an astonishing lineup of buildings by celebrated architects like Eero Saarinen, Richard Meier, I. M. Pei, and Kevin Roche. Joining us is Richard McCoy, founding director of Landmark Columbus, and Mary...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
In 1950, a modest glass-walled Modernist house designed by Gregory Ain was on exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art's garden, another in the Museum's series of full scale builds of Modernist houses. A system of movable walls made flexible spaces even though there were only two-bedrooms. But once the exhibition closed, the entire house, and any knowledge of it, disappeared. Countless people over the decades searched for it. The New York Times published an article in 2017 extolling the mystery and...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Remember our show a while back on Seattle Modernism with Jim Olson of Olson Kundig? Well before Jim Olson and Tom Kundig came along, the Pacific Northwest had architect Paul Hayden Kirk creating amazing Modernist houses. Joining us today is Dale Kutzera, author Paul Hayden Kirk and the Rise of Northwest Modern. Later on, travel in time back to 1961 and the Rat Pack with music from Deana Martin, daughter of one of the coolest dudes ever, singer and actor and producer Dean Martin.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Research Triangle Park in North Carolina is the largest planned research center in the United States, and it's getting bigger - much bigger, at least in terms of buildings. During its first heyday in the 1960's, Research Triangle Park boasted several Modernist corporate campuses, most notably aul Rudolph's complex of buildings for Burroughs Wellcome. Now under the leadership team of today's guest, Research Triangle Foundation CEO Scott Levitan, the park has over a billion in new investment...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Architects like Chambers, Clark, Cody, Frey, Kaptur, Krisel, Wexler, and Williams put the Modernist architecture of Palm Springs on the map from the 1940's through the 2000's, and in Hugh Kaptur's case, still going at age 90. Behind them are a new generation of Modernist architects and today we talk with one of the area's most successful, Sean Lockyer. Later on, comedian and former architecture student Aaron Kominos Smith.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
One of the great architects of midcentury Palm Springs was William F. Cody, featured in the Leo Zahn documentary Desert Maverick. Joining us is the author of a new book on Cody - his daughter, Cathy Cody, and later on, drummer Raice McLeod remembers the amazing singer Eva Cassidy and shares two of her songs.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
When we hear about a Modernist house by an important architect being bought and destroyed, there's widespread outrage from preservationists. Why didn't these people try to save them? Why didn't the buyers consult architectural historians? The owners should be forced to do whatever it takes, and whatever it costs, to keep the houses intact, right? It's a classic struggle between property rights and preservation ideals. Turns out, though, that some of those dastardly owners actually followed the...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Just when you thought it was another safe architecture chat, it's our Halloween midnight madness Mod-tacular, and joining us is someone who knows where all the bodies are buried, author Henry Kuehn of Architects Gravesites - along with modern preservationist by day, horror historian by night, Christine Madrid French. Later on, music from Peter Lamb and the Wolves, hopefully under a full moon.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
This has been a tough time for travel, but in between COVID surges last summer, host George Smart managed to get to New York City for a series of conversations with architect Gisue Hariri, DOCOMOMO-US founder and architecture professor Theo Prudon, and prolific architecture journalist Fred Bernstein. Later on, a few minutes with TikTok design critic Louisa Whitmore.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Connecticut is famous for the first hamburger (1895), Polaroid camera (1934), helicopter (1939), and color television (1948). It's the home of PEZ, World Wrestling, and Design Within Reach. It's also a hotbed for Modernist houses by many famous architects such as Philip Johnson, John Johansen, Eliot Noyes, Edward Durell Stone, Gisue and Mojgan Hariri, Marcel Breuer, and even Frank Lloyd Wright. Joining us is Ken Sena, Connecticut Marcel Breuer homeowner and recently part of the new documentary...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
The European Union has some of the same problems we do: damaging climate change, a flood of immigrants, and a population frequently in disagreement. But while America argues vaccines and pounces on Hamilton's uber-inclusive Lin-Manuel Miranda for not being inclusive enough, the EU President Ursula von der Leyden created the New European Bauhaus High-Level Round Table. Nice. These valiant design knights of the design realm include Bjarke Ingels, Shiguru Ban, Francesca Bria, and today's guest...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
The Stahl House in Los Angeles is among the most famous houses in the world. Designed by Pierre Koenig and engineered by William Porush, the Stahl House and its pool were immortalized by legendary design photographer Julius Shulman. In a conversation recorded poolside at the swanky Hotel Skylark in Palm Springs, where they were part of a panel discussion at the Palm Springs Museum of Art, our George Smart talks with Shari Stahl Gronwald and Bruce Stahl. They grew up in the Stahl House and spent...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler, wright
Peter Bohlin and Peter Gluck are two of most innovative and successful architects in residential Modernist design. In careers spanning over 14 decades, if we add them all together, their award-winning practices created several hundred award-winning houses you can see at usmodernist.org/gluck and usmodernist.org/bohlin. Later on, commentary on the the famous Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe with Louisa Whitmore.
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Like the Holy Grail or Colonel Sanders special 11 herbs and spices, people have been searching for the secret to successful prefabricated houses for nearly 100 years. What could possibly be better than reasonably-priced, mostly factory built house parts assembled on your land in a matter of days or weeks, not months? The promise of well-designed houses fast and cheap turns out, not so easy - or popular with a public that still prefers developer tract houses. Joining us is Professor Avi...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
The bluest skies you've ever seen? The hills the greenest green? It's Seattle, Washington, backdrop for TV shows such as Grey's Anatomy, Frasier, and if you go back far enough, Here Come The Brides, the breakout series for 70's pop icons David Soul and Bobby Sherman. In addition to having the most tech jobs in North America (sorry, San Jose) the Emerald city is also home to Starbucks and incredible Modernist houses from the early days of Paul Hayden Kirk to today's guest, architect Jim Olson of...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
There's a lively city on the West Coast, a sprawling California metropolis that many consider the epicenter of Modernist architecture. Sorry, Bakersfield, it's not you, although you've got two good ones we know of. We're talking greater Los Angeles, 30,000 plus square miles from the valleys to the sea and across the mountains with thousands of Modernist houses from the 1920's through today. Joining us is the Director of Advocacy for the Los Angeles Conservancy, Adrian Scott Fine, and LA city...
Topics: Podcast, architect, architecture, art, design, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
Marcel Breuer was one of several architects who brought European Modernism to the US. He was known for hundreds of projects including the Atlanta Public Library, The Whitney Museum in New York, the Pirelli Building in New Haven, The Housing and Urban Development Building in Washington DC, and many iconic houses in Massachusetts and Connecticut. No one was more passionate than Breuer about his work - except for maybe Rufus Stillman, who commissioned four houses over the years. Joining us is...
Topics: Podcast, Design, architect, architecture, art, lautner, modern, modernist, neutra, schindler,...
